1865

Events

January

• January 4 - The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street, in New York City.
• January 13 - American Civil War: Second Battle of Fort Fisher - Union forces launch a major amphibious assault against the last seaport held by the Confederates, Fort Fisher, North Carolina.
• January 15 - American Civil War: Union forces capture Fort Fisher.
• January 31
• * The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passes narrowly, in the House of Representatives.
• * American Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief.

  February

• February 3 - American Civil War: Hampton Roads Conference: Union and Confederate leaders discuss peace terms.
• February 6 - The municipal administration of Finland is established.
• February 8 & March 8 - Gregor Mendel reads his paper on Experiments on Plant Hybridization at two meetings of the Natural History Society of Brünn in Moravia, subsequently taken to be the origin of the theory of Mendelian inheritance.
• February 21 - John Deere receives a United States patent for ploughs.
• February 22 - Tennessee adopts a new constitution that abolishes slavery.
• February - American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina burns, as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.

  March

• March 3 - The U.S. Congress authorizes formation of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands.
• March 4 - Washington College and Jefferson College are merged to form Washington & Jefferson College in the United States.
• March 13 - American Civil War: The Confederate States of America agrees to the use of African American troops.
• March 18 - American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourns for the last time.
• March 19-21 - American Civil War : Battle of Bentonville: Union troops compel Confederate forces to retreat from Four Oaks, North Carolina.
• March 25
• * The Claywater Meteorite explodes just before reaching ground level in Vernon County, Wisconsin; fragments having a combined mass of are recovered.
• * American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Stedman from the Union, although it is retaken the same day. Lee's army suffers heavy casualties: about 2,900, including 1,000 captured in the Union counterattack. Confederate positions are weakened. After the battle, Lee's defeat is only a matter of time.
• March - Hamm's Brewery opens in St. Paul, Minnesota.

  April

• April 1 - American Civil War - Battle of Five Forks: In Petersburg, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive.
• April 2 - American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet flee the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, which is taken by Union troops the next day.
• April 6 - German chemicals producer Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik is founded in Mannheim.
• April 9 - American Civil War: Confederate States Army General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the war.
• April 14
• * Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: President of the United States Abraham Lincoln is shot while attending an evening performance of the farce Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth.
• * United States Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family are attacked in his home, by Lewis Powell.
• April 15 - President Lincoln dies early this morning from his gunshot wound, aged 56. Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes the 17th President of the United States upon Lincoln's death and is sworn in later that morning.
• April 18 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his entire cabinet arrive in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a contingent of 1,000 soldiers.
• April 21 - German chemicals producer BASF moves its headquarters and factories from Mannheim, to the Hemshof District of Ludwigshafen.
• April 26
• * American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston surrenders to Union Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, at Durham Station, North Carolina.
• * Union cavalry corner John Wilkes Booth in a Virginia barn, and cavalryman Boston Corbett fatally shoots the assassin.
• April 27
• * The steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,300 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,800, mostly Union survivors of the Andersonville Prison.File:Sultana Disaster.jpg|thumb|200px|right|April 27: Steamboat Sultana sinks.
• * Governor of New York Reuben Fenton signs a bill formally creating Cornell University.

  May

• May 1 - The Treaty of the Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay against Paraguay is formally signed, following the outbreak of the Paraguayan War.
• May 4 - American Civil War: Lieutenant General Richard Taylor, commanding all Confederate forces in Alabama, Mississippi, and eastern Louisiana, surrenders his forces to Union General Edward Canby at Citronelle, Alabama, effectively ending all Confederate resistance east of the Mississippi River.
• May 5 - In the United States:
• * In North Bend, Ohio, the first train robbery in the country takes place.
• * Jefferson Davis meets with his Confederate Cabinet for the last time, in Washington, Georgia, and the Confederate Government is officially dissolved.
• May 10 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is captured by the Union Army near Irwinville, Georgia.
• May 12 - Electric equipment and mobile brand Nokia founded in Tampere, Finland.
• May 12-13 - American Civil War - Battle of Palmito Ranch: In far south Texas, more than a month after Confederate General Lee's surrender, the last land battle of the civil war with casualties, ends with a Confederate victory.
• May 17
• * The International Telegraph Union is founded.
• * French missionary Father Armand David first observes Père David's deer in Peking, China.
• May 23 - Grand Review of the Armies: Union Army troops parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to celebrate the end of the American Civil War.
• May 25 - Mobile magazine explosion: 300 are killed in Mobile, Alabama, when an ordnance depot explodes.
• May 28 - The Mimosa sets sail with emigrants from Wales for Patagonia.
• May 29 - American Civil War: President of the United States Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation of general amnesty for most citizens of the former Confederacy.

  June

• June 2 - American Civil War: Confederate forces west of the Mississippi River under General Edmund Kirby Smith surrender at Galveston, Texas, under terms negotiated on May 26, becoming the last to do so.
• June 10 - Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde debuts at the Munich Court Theatre.
• June 11 - Battle of the Riachuelo: The Brazilian Navy squadron defeats the Paraguayan Navy.

• June 19 - American Civil War: Union Major General Gordon Granger lands at Galveston, Texas, and informs the people of Texas of the Emancipation Proclamation.
• June 23 - American Civil War: At Fort Towson in Oklahoma Territory, Confederate General Stand Watie, a Cherokee Indian, surrenders the last significant Rebel army.
• June 25 - James Hudson Taylor founds the China Inland Mission at Brighton, England.
• June 26 - Jumbo, a young male African elephant, arrives at London Zoo and becomes a popular attraction.
• June-August - English polymath Francis Galton first describes eugenics.

  July

• July 2 - The Christian Mission, later renamed The Salvation Army, is founded in Whitechapel, London, by William and Catherine Booth.
• July 4 - Lewis Carroll publishes his children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in England.
• July 5
• * The U.S. Secret Service is founded.
• * The first speed limit is introduced in Britain: in town and in the country.
• July 7 - Following Abraham Lincoln's assassination on April 14, the four conspirators condemned to death during the trial are hanged, including David Herold, George Atzerodt, Lewis Powell and Mary Surratt. Her son, John Surratt, escapes execution by fleeing to Canada, and ultimately to Egypt.
• July 14 - First ascent of the Matterhorn: The summit of the Matterhorn in the Alps is reached for the first time, by a party of 7 led by the Englishman Edward Whymper; 4 die in a fall during the descent.

• July 21 - Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout: In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots "Little Dave" Davis Tutt dead over a poker debt, in what is regarded as the first true western fast draw showdown.
• July 23 - The departs on a voyage to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable.
• July 26 - The New Zealand Parliament first meets in Wellington on a permanent basis, making it de facto the national capital.
• July 27
• * Welsh settlers arrive in Argentina at Chubut Valley.
• * Businessman Asa Packer establishes Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
• July 30 - The steamer Brother Jonathan sinks off the California coast, killing 225 passengers and crew.
• July 31 - The first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, Australia.

  August

• August 16 - The Dominican Republic regains independence from Spain.
• August 25 - The Shergotty meteorite Mars meteorite falls in Sherghati, Gaya, Bihar in India.